ABSTRACT
From the letters I have at various times received within the last three years and a half, it would appear that many people think that a less amount of knowledge and skill than are necessary for medical women in this country will suffice for India ; indeed, some seem to think that some experience of nursing, common sense, and a little smattering of medical knowledge, are enough to furnish forth medical women for India. There never was a greater mistake. The best skill, the most thorough knowledge of her profession, as much practical experience as possible,-in short, a complete and thorough medical training-nothing short of this is needed in the women doctors who elect to make India their field of work. To send out second-rate medical women would be to discredit from the beginning a noble and most useful work. Some allusion has already been made to the clinging of the natives of India to their old system of treat-' ment. There is still a strong feeling against European methods in the more conservative native families. When anyone falls ill, or a woman is about to be confined, the first thought is to obtain, if pot!Sible, the services of some native practitioner. In the great majority of cases, the patient either recovers or dies in his or her bands. In a great number of cases European treatment is eventually resorted to, but the result of this habit of first calling in native aid is . that the general run of cases doctors in India are called upon to treat, are much more severe, and test the skill and resources more than in this country. Surgery is comparatively little practised by the various classes of native practitioners; indeed, by many it is looked down upon as beneath their dignity, quite as much as in the olden days, in this country, the humble surgeon-barber who preceded the modern surgeon, would have beeri looked down upon by the physician.
